“So how do I convince women to buy their own perfume? How could I get the American woman to buy her own perfume? I would not call it perfume,” David Senra quotes from A Success Story by Estée Lauder.
In the 1950s and 60s women didn’t buy themselves perfume. Instead, it was a gift and is an example of JTBD’s customers or consumers dynamic.
In Jobs Theory, producers have to solve the job for both the customer and consumer. No one gets fired for buying IBM articulates the customer angle – but leaves out the consumer. Does IBM serve the job for users (and later, investors)? ymmv
But Lauder did something different. Rather than address the concerns of both groups, she took a page (or inspired one!) from The 22 Immutable Laws of Advertising. Or in the words of Ricky Bobby, if you ain’t first, you’re last.
David again, from A Success Story:
“I would call it Youth-Dew, a bath oil that dubbed as a skin perfume. That would be acceptable to buy because it was feminine, all American, and very girl next door to take baths, wasn’t it? And so think about the difference in size of bath oil, how many ounces you would sell compared to the size of like a perfume or cologne.
We created a mini revolution in the whole world. As I saw it took on a fresher, more stimulating aspect. Instead of using their French perfumes by the drop behind the ear, women were using Youth-Dew by the bottle in their bath water.
It doesn’t take a graduate school of business to figure out that that meant sales, beautiful sales. In 1953, Youth-Dew did about 50,000 worth of business for us. In 1984, that figure was over 150 million dollars.”
Beautiful.
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